Judge acquits barrister Rayney of wife's murder

It's the murder trial that has transfixed Western Australia. Last week prominent Perth lawyer Lloyd Rayney was found not guilty of the murder or manslaughter of his wife Corryn Rayney, a Supreme Court registrar, in 2007. In an unusual move, the murder trial was heard by a judge alone, rather than by a judge and jury, due to the intense media attention coming in part from the Rayneys' deep connection with the Perth legal profession.

Transcript

Damien Carrick: Welcome to the Law Report, Damien Carrick with you. Today, the murder trial that transfixed WA. Last week, prominent Perth lawyer Lloyd Rayney was found not guilty of the murder of his wife Corryn Rayney. Here is Lloyd Rayney speaking on the steps of the court, following his acquittal.

Lloyd Rayney: Despite the best-funded investigation, despite unlimited, apparently, resources at the disposal of those people investigating, this is still unsolved, and that’s an extremely hard thing for my family to accept.

Damien Carrick: The murder investigation attracted so much attention that Lloyd Rayney convinced the court to have his trial heard by judge alone rather than by a judge and jury. Lloyd Rayney successfully argued that the unprecedented publicity made it impossible to find an impartial jury. Jo Menagh is a Perth-based reporter with ABC TV and radio. She’s covered this extraordinary trial from the beginning, which was presided over by Judge Brian Martin.

Jo Menagh: He found Lloyd Rayney not guilty of the murder of his wife Corryn and also not guilty of the alternative charge of manslaughter of Corryn Rayney, so he was acquitted of everything. The judge found that really the state hadn’t proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and he even went further to say that the state’s case was beset by improbabilities and uncertainties and that parts of it was speculation without any foundation in evidence. So it was a fairly unequivocal acquittal of Lloyd Rayney on all of these charges.

Jo Menagh: That’s right, they were very successful people. Lloyd Rayney was a former senior prosecutor with the Director of Public Prosecutions here in WA. In fact, he reached the position of being the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions. He went to the bar in about 2003 or so and he was a very successful barrister; represented some of the high profile cases here in WA. His wife Corryn was a Supreme Court registrar, which is really, you know, the equivalent of a Supreme Court judge, so both were very…very successful people, and as you say, very prominent in WA’s legal profession.

Damien Carrick: And because his trial involved a deceased and an accused in that legal community, a lot of the participants in the trial had to be brought in from other jurisdictions.

Jo Menagh: That’s right. The judge, Justice Brian Martin, the former chief justice of the Northern Territory was brought in to preside over the case, because of course Corryn Rayney worked at the Supreme Court with the other judges who might’ve been appointed to hear this case, so Justice Brian Martin had to be brought in to preside over the case, but also the case had to be handled by and dealt with by the New South Wales director of public prosecutions because of Lloyd Rayney working at the DPP for many, many years before. So the case was actually taken out of the hands of the WA office of the DPP and handled by the New South Wales office, and John Agius, a prominent Sydney silk was brought over to prosecute the case.

Damien Carrick: Now, we’re going to talk about the facts of the case in a moment, but what sort of media attention did this murder investigation and this trial attract in Perth?

Jo Menagh: Well, I’ve been a journalist for about 20 years and I’ve probably never seen anything like it. I mean, it was right from the get go when Corryn Rayney disappeared on August 7th 2007. Because she was, I guess, a member of WA’s judiciary, the attention then became very intense, because of the job she did, and perhaps a suggestion that, you know, someone had tried to kill her or get rid of her because of a disgruntled decision she’d made, and certainly because also Lloyd Rayney was that successful, prominent barrister. So, right from the beginning it had intense, intense media interest in it.

Now she…her body wasn’t found until eight days after she disappeared, and it was found in Kings Park in central Perth, which, I mean, very rarely do you find bodies being buried in Kings Park, but there was a quirk about that, about how it was found, because the person who buried her in that grave site had driven over a bollard at the grave sight and had damaged the car, so the car was only able to drive a few kilometres away and it was dumped in a nearby suburb. It sat there for eight days until someone realised that that was Corryn Rayney’s car, and then what led police to her grave was the trail of oil from that damaged car. So if the person who buried her had never driven over that bollard her body might never have been found, because we don’t know where her car would’ve been left, so that was a quirk of fate again that made it incredibly interesting.

Also, a name card with Lloyd Rayney’s name on it was found in the vicinity of the grave site, and that was from a chambers dinner; he worked out of one of the chambers here, that was where he had his practice, and that was found near the grave site, which again added another layer to this whole interesting story. Now, in the end the judge found that, you know, that place card was probably just a quirk; you know, a lot of strange things can happen in cases and they have quite innocent explanations, and that’s how he described that place card. He said it didn’t really have any bearing on whether the state’s case to prove that Lloyd Rayney murdered his wife. He just said that it probably had an innocent explanation.

Damien Carrick: Let’s go back to the prosecution case. What was the prosecution case in terms of the motive of Lloyd Rayney to kill his wife? What were they alleging?

Jo Menagh: Well, there was evidence that the marriage had broken down, irretrievably broken down, and that there was some animosity between the two. I mean, we heard evidence that Corryn Rayney would send emails to all her family and friends, phone her family and friends and…and really talk about how she wanted to get Lloyd out of the house; she wanted him out, she wanted to take possession of the house, she wanted to live in that house with the couple’s two daughters. So the motive was that he wanted to get rid of her. There was evidence also that she had threatened to ruin his career as a successful barrister because he was a gambler. There was also evidence of an affair that he’d had, and she…in certain emails and to statements to family and friends, it said that she was going to make this public and ruin him, and she wanted from him some financial information which she said that she wasn’t getting from him, and that included information about work he’d done for Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting. Several hundreds of thousands of dollars he received, and the suggestion was that he was hiding those payments, but the motive was that he wanted to get rid of her because she was going to bring him down, I guess, was the motive, the basic motive that the prosecution said.

Damien Carrick: And because, of course, we’re talking about an acrimonious dissolving marriage, even though they’re still living under the same roof, in separate bedrooms. There was evidence that he had actually tapped his wife’s phone.

Jo Menagh: That’s right. Certainly he involved a third person in this, he got a technological expert, if you like, who came in and installed a device that would monitor the home phone of the…at the Rayney home, and prosecutors said that’s because he wanted to find out, you know, exactly what Corryn Rayney was doing, what she was up to. And they also said that, you know, because he knew what she was saying to family and friends about bringing him down, if you like, and taking him to the cleaners and describing him as a snake, that’s why they said the motivation for him was that he knew that he had to get rid of Corryn Rayney; he had to kill her. I think he argues that it wasn’t an illegal bugging, certainly that was what was put to the man who helped him, by the defence counsel, was said that Lloyd Rayney made it plain that he wasn’t to do anything illegal, so I think Lloyd Rayney would maintain that he didn’t do anything illegal, but he is still facing a charge over that...over this allegation, and that will have to go before a jury at some point, because it’s a Commonwealth charge, but a date hasn’t yet been set for that trial.

Damien Carrick: Now, what was the prosecution case as to the sequence of events on the night of the 7th of August 2007?

Jo Menagh: Well, it centred on that the couple had agreed to meet. Corryn Rayney had told family and friends that Lloyd Rayney had finally agreed to meet her and hand over the financial information that she’d been waiting for, so she went to a boot scooting class every Tuesday night, so that was where she was last seen alive. She went to a boot scooting class in a nearby suburb, prosecution then says she drove home, and that when she arrived home she was suddenly attacked by Lloyd Rayney who either rendered her unconscious then or killed her. What they alleged was that he then hid her body somewhere, because the younger daughter, who was only ten at the time was asleep upstairs. The other daughter, Caitlyn, was at I think it was a Gwen Stefani concert and was going to be brought home by friends. So in that window of about an hour he’s hidden Corryn Rayney’s body, hidden her car as well, taken that somewhere else, come back, then Caitlin Rayney has been dropped off by the people who took her to the concert, he asked those people in for a drink, then they’ve stayed up doing some homework, he stayed up doing some homework with Caitlin, she asked where her mother was and they just said, ‘Oh, she hasn’t come home yet’, and then they say that then after Caitlin went to bed it was alleged that Lloyd Rayney then went and got his wife’s body, put it into her car, drove it to Kings Park, buried the body and then of course he’s driven over the bollard and the car is damaged, so he has to dump the car in the nearby street, then he walked home, probably a journey of about 90 minutes or an hour or so, going over the Narrows Bridge in Perth, walked home, probably estimated that he got home about 4 am, then he was up again at about 7:30 am to wake his daughters who he took to school and then he arrived at his chambers about eight o’clock and had a meeting with the senior police officer who he was representing at the Corruption and Crime Commission.

That was the scenario that was put, and in the end the judge found that really…that lacked logic, because, you know, to think that someone could’ve done that, been up all night, if you like, digging a grave, killing someone and then appear, have the demeanour... Nobody noticed anything unusual about him the next morning, the judge found that that just lacked logic and that he didn’t…found that that scenario stood up.

Damien Carrick: The judge also found that there were some very serious flaws in the prosecution case. He referred to the physical size and the physical condition of both the accused and the deceased. What was he talking about there?

Jo Menagh: Well, Corryn Rayney was 11 kg heavier than her husband, and from the evidence that we heard in court she was a very feisty woman as well, and that some of the friends said that if anybody was ever going to be involved in an altercation or if there was an altercation between the two that Lloyd Rayney would’ve been the worst off. He is a very slight man, he’s quite short, I think about 170 cm or so, and she was about the same height but eleven kilos heavier, and he...there was also evidence that Lloyd Rayney had a very, very bad back and that he couldn’t lift heavy weights or couldn’t...simply wouldn’t have been able to have dragged his wife’s body into the car and dragged it through Kings Park and dragged it into a grave, so the physicality of the two was...it was a very important factor in the trial, and as you say, an important factor in the judge’s decision to acquit Mr Rayney.

Damien Carrick: And then there was a question of his demeanour throughout the course of this evening, his daughter being dropped home, the person dropping her off seeing him, his demeanour the following day... There was no evidence that would suggest that he’d just been involved in this exhausting and stressful murder.

Jo Menagh: That’s right, no signs of any...like, blisters on his hands, he didn’t appear dishevelled in any way, he just appeared his normal, usual self, and that next day he just appeared, everyone—lawyers and the police officer he was representing—just said he appeared totally as normal; there was no sign to suggest that he’d been up all night digging graves. His demeanour changed, however, they said, when about 11 o’clock in that morning he got a call from the Supreme Court to say his wife hadn’t come to work and did he know where she was, and that’s when his demeanour changed. It was very unusual for her not to come to work, and he realised something was wrong, and that’s when we heard that his demeanour changed, but certainly before that there was no sign to support the prosecution’s contention that he’d done this.

Damien Carrick: So Jo Menagh, what did the judge find as to where and how Corryn Rayney died?

Jo Menagh: Well, he found that she actually took her last breaths at Kings Park where she was buried, which again tended to undermine the state’s case, because they maintained that she was killed at the home. Now, he said it was likely that she was attacked at the home, but...

Damien Carrick: And rendered unconscious?

Jo Menagh: And rendered unconscious, that’s right, but he found that it was...it...because of swabs taken from her nasal passages which indicated that there was pollen from Kings Park, that tended to suggest, or did suggest, that she took her last breaths in Kings Park and that she either died before she was buried or she was still alive when she was buried and suffocated when the sand was put on top of her. So that, as I say, tended to undermine the state’s case, because their case was that she was murdered at the home, so to find that she took her last breaths at Kings Park was another problem that the state had.

Damien Carrick: And the idea that Lloyd Rayney would have rendered her unconscious, left her at the side of the house while he waited for his daughter to come back from the concert, and it was quite possible that she could’ve maybe recovered consciousness during that scenario, as laid out by the prosecution…the judge felt that that was pretty implausible.

Jo Menagh: Yes, that’s right, he couldn’t find that the evidence supported that at all. As he said, the state’s case in the end was beset by improbabilities and uncertainties, and that’s probably an example of that.

Damien Carrick: What did the judge have to say about the truthfulness or otherwise of the accused, Lloyd Rayney?

Jo Menagh: Well, he did say that he had engaged in some discreditable conduct, and as you say that included the phone tapping, but there was also evidence about some lies that the prosecution said he told after his wife’s disappearance and death. He told a barrister friend that he’d driven his wife’s car to the chambers dinner from where the place card came, and the evidence was in fact that he drove his other car, which was a late model car that was not at all like his wife’s car. The police alleged also that he told them after his wife had disappeared that he couldn’t provide them with information about the alarm system at the Rayney home because it was broken, and police and prosecution said that was a lie that showed a consciousness of guilt, if you like. But what the judge...while he did, as I say, find that Lloyd Rayney had engaged in some discreditable conduct, he did say that those sorts of lies that he told, which the prosecution said was indicative of consciousness of guilt, he said that that could also be consistent with an innocent man who’s found himself in a terrible traumatic situation where his wife has disappeared and where he is the subject of intense media. So he did say that it could also be seen as being conduct that was consistent with an innocent man.

Damien Carrick: Of course the standard of proof here is proof beyond reasonable doubt. I mean, that’s at the heart of a criminal trial, isn’t it?

Jo Menagh: Exactly right, and the judge said, you know, there was a lot of suspicious conduct by Mr Rayney, discreditable conduct by Mr Rayney, but in the end that does not prove guilt. He said it falls well short of the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, which is of course as you know, the cornerstone of the justice system.

Damien Carrick: Jo Menagh, where to from here? Can the prosecution appeal the decision, and if so on what grounds?

Jo Menagh: Yes, they can lodge an appeal against it. They have 21 days to do that. They would have to find that the judge made an error of law somewhere, and not being a jury trial, they have before them the judge’s reasoning, why he’s reached this verdict; they have everything before them, so they can go through it with a fine-tooth comb and see if he has made any errors of law. They’ve got 21 days to do that. Having said that, the judgment is fairly...I mean, he does say at the end that the state case fell well short of proof beyond reasonable doubt, but that is of course for the state to consider. As I’ve said before, Mr Rayney also has a charge of bugging his wife’s phone. That’s a Commonwealth charge, and because it’s a Commonwealth charge has to go before a jury; it can’t be a judge alone trial. And then of course there’s also the multi-million dollar defamation action that he started back in 2008, and that stemmed from a senior police officer in a news conference six weeks after Corryn Rayney’s death describing Mr Rayney as the prime and only suspect in his wife’s murder, and there was evidence at his trial that from then on basically the phone at his chambers stopped ringing overnight, so he...that...if he goes ahead with that action and if he wins he’s facing a substantial payout, because as a successful barrister he would’ve been earning quite a lot of money, and when the phone stopped and his...he says his career was ruined, his reputation was ruined, so if that goes ahead and he wins he probably would receive a substantial payout.

Damien Carrick: Coming back to the murder trial, what did Judge Brian Martin have to say about the police investigation and their attitudes towards Mr Rayney?

Jo Menagh: He said that some of their conduct…it ranged from inappropriate to reprehensible. I guess that stemmed from...we heard the whole issue of that senior officer naming Mr Rayney as the prime suspect was raised, and I guess he did say that that was inappropriate, so…and certainly the whole defence case, or a lot of the defence case, was based on the inappropriateness of the police investigation. Having said that, while Justice Martin did find that some behaviour was inappropriate and reprehensible he also didn’t support the theory that other lines of inquiry weren’t properly investigated. He said that he was satisfied that all lines of inquiry were investigated by the police. So…but, it certainly…a lot of…does raise a lot of questions for the police and you know, there’s calls now for an independent inquiry to examine the investigation into Corryn Rayney’s death.

Damien Carrick: Jo Menagh, finally, Judge Brian Martin as he delivered his verdict acknowledged that this is of course a family trying to deal with grief. What comments did he make and why were they so unusual?

Jo Menagh: He singled out Corryn Rayney’s father, Ernest Da Silva, who as soon as he was able to he gave...he was the very first witness in the trial, and from then on he sat through every day of the trial, came every day. He singled him out and Brian Martin actually became emotional as he did it, and he said that Ernest Da Silva had conducted himself impeccably and with dignity throughout the trial, and Brian Martin fought back tears as he said to him, ‘And for that I thank you.’ It was a very emotional moment in the trial, and it’s significant also because Corryn Rayney’s family is now split, because Ernest Da Silva, her father, and her sister Sharon Coutinho and all her family have been very supportive of the police and the prosecutors who investigated this case, and they would come to court every day accompanied by the detectives. And that of course has caused a split now, because Lloyd Rayney and his two daughters are on the opposite side, of course, because they claim that they have been treated incredibly badly by police. So there is this very sad split in the family now where...and there was evidence of that; the two sides don’t see each other; the two Rayney daughters don’t see their grandfather at all. Justice Martin acknowledged that those…some people would be distressed with his judgment, but as I said, he singled out Ernest Da Silva and certainly thanked him for what he said was his impeccable conduct.

Damien Carrick: Perth-based ABC reporter Jo Menagh. I’m Damien Carrick and this is the Law Report on ABC Radio National, Radio Australia and ABC News Radio. You can find today’s story and more online at abc.net.au/radionational and from there follow the links through to the Law Report page. There you can also find downloadable audio and transcripts and you can also continue the conversation on Twitter, by tweeting @lawreportrn.

As we’ve been hearing, the Lloyd Rayney trial was heard by judge alone. Unusually for a murder trial, there was no jury. Dr Fiona Hanlon is currently researching judge-alone trials like Lloyd Rayney’s for the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration

Fiona Hanlon: Well Damien, in the legislation that applies in Western Australia there’s an option in their Criminal Procedure Act for an accused to make application for a judge-alone trial where the accused feels that for whatever reason they will not get a fair trial before a jury, and then it’s a matter of a court having to make a decision in the interests of justice whether that application should be supported or not. If the court decides that it is in the interests of justice to have a judge-alone trial then they will order that to happen, and that’s how the case will proceed.

Damien Carrick: And what were the arguments in the Rayney case? Presumably the extraordinary publicity?

Fiona Hanlon: It was the extraordinary publicity. It was also to do with the evidence that was going to be presented, that it was technical evidence and there is a lot of argument in the literature that juries don’t necessarily deal well with complex evidence. The other aspect was that it was anticipated to be a very long trial, which proved to be correct.

Damien Carrick: Twelve weeks.

Fiona Hanlon: And there is a view that that is almost an unreasonable burden to put on jurors to take that much time out of their private and working lives.

Damien Carrick: There was something like, I think, 100 people testified, something like 700 exhibits were tendered. The trial, even with a judge, lasted for 12 weeks, probably much longer if there had been a jury, and there was a lot of complex forensic evidence.

Fiona Hanlon: A lot of complex forensic evidence, yes.

Damien Carrick: So we’ve got this system in WA; what are the rules around Australia, are they the same?

Fiona Hanlon: Well, there’s a variety of rules around Australia. First of all, we can rule out Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory; judge alone trial in indictable offences is not an option, so there’s no model there, in either of those jurisdictions. In South Australia the accused can make the choice, in the ACT, again the accused can make the choice, but only for a range of offences; there’s a limited range of offences. The ACT’s recently legislated to rule out murder, manslaughter and serious sexual offences from the judge-alone option. And in New South Wales and Queensland it is basically the same sort of model as WA: an interests of justice test on application from the accused or the prosecution.

Damien Carrick: So we’ve got this smorgasbord around the country.

Fiona Hanlon: We have, we have.

Damien Carrick: What percentage of accused take up the option in the jurisdictions where it’s available?

Fiona Hanlon: It’s difficult to be precise, because what tends to happen is that courts keep their figures in terms of just trials, and they don’t differentiate in public court reports between jury trials and non-jury trials, but some work has been done, unfortunately not up to date, but if you take the period between 2004 and 2008, work that was done then indicated that in the ACT about 56 per cent were, South Australia about 15, New South Wales about 5 per cent and WA about 3 per cent. Now, since then, the ACT has changed the law, because they were concerned that there were too many judge-alone trials; that 56 per cent was one of the triggers for changing the law and restricting the range of offences. So we expect that to drop back. The changes in New South Wales were to free up...there’s a view that the change in New South Wales legislation will actually make it easier, potentially, to have a judge-alone trial, so there’s an expectation that that figure of 5 per cent has grown and is already a larger percentage, but I can’t give you the precise figures.

Damien Carrick: Fiona Hanlon, you’ve looked at this, who do you think has it right?

Fiona Hanlon: I would choose, if I was being asked to advise on forming a model, and I can’t bind the AIJA in saying this, but my view…I think either the South Australian or the ACT model, where it’s at the choice of the accused. If you take a view of the right to a jury trial as being a protection for the accused, then I think the most robust model is to allow the accused to make the choice, but if the accused has a feeling that he or she will not receive a fair trial from a jury, let them exercise that right. If you think, as the ACT does, that in the community interests there are some forms of offending that should be subject to jury trial, then legislate for that—as I said, as the ACT has—but it still leaves the choice as the accused. When you get to a model where it’s either the prosecution who has a say in the jury mode...in the trial mode, or you have a court having to make the call in the interests of justice, then you get into levels of complication and potentially criticism of the judiciary for making a call on the basis of somehow not respecting the community’s right to have a jury system, or being too pro the prosecution or the defence, and I think it’s a cleaner, more robust model just to leave it to the defence’s call.

Damien Carrick: Well on that point of whether this is advantageous for the prosecution or the defence, what are the figures? What are the conviction rates, the guilty versus not guilty rates of judge-alone versus jury trials?

Fiona Hanlon: Well again, Damien the problem is that we don’t have any substantiated public figures—publicly available figures. There’s anecdotal material which suggests that judges acquit more often than juries. But that tends to also come from commentators who aren’t necessarily pro judge-alone trials. So you’re not sure if it’s just a selective anecdotal view. There have been some studies in the US about different conviction rates and that research basically comes down to saying that either it depends on the…it can depend on the type of offence. It depends on the evidence involved and that on some view, judges are more likely to convict than juries. And then other parts of the studies will say that depending on the sort of offending, sometimes a judge might be more likely to acquit than a jury. So there’s no clear pattern. There’s no clear pattern.

Damien Carrick: So in those US studies, what kind of offending is a judge more likely to convict on and what kind of an offending is a jury more likely to acquit on?

Fiona Hanlon: Well there was some suggestions that if it was a more personal sort of offending such as a drink driving related type issue, that juries might be more likely to acquit because they can see themselves more in the shoes of the defence. There’s a tendency in the material to say that judges are much more technical about the evidence and where there is a lot of technical evidence the judge will really do that deep analysis of the material and will have…take a tougher view of the evidence and that might come out with an acquittal. Whereas a jury might take a more, ‘well, seems reasonable’ type…a yes or no type answer to whether someone should be convicted or acquitted. And…

Damien Carrick: Are you saying that the judges are more rigorous?

Fiona Hanlon: Well on that view, yes, the judges are more rigorous. Or on the other view, if you’re a pro jury trial what you say is what the jury is doing is putting in a sort of, a community common sense overlay on their decision making.

Damien Carrick: Of course with a jury verdict you never get any sense of what they decide…why they came to the decision that they did. But with a judge-alone trial, as in the Rayney case, we had the judgement—incredibly useful in terms of understanding—and especially the summary as well as the 300 page judgement—the 13 page summary—very very helpful in terms of summarising the evidence and understanding the reasoning upon which the decision was made. That seems to be a very very useful exercise. There seemed to be real advantages or real positives with that.

Fiona Hanlon: Well you’re right and that was one of the reasons that influenced the court to authorise the Rayney trial to go as a judge-alone trial because the court said, well there will be a statement of reasons. You don’t get reasons for a jury trial because it’s thought that those 12 men and women in a jury room will all reach their view but they may reach it on a different basis. So you can’t have 12 different sets of reasons. And it’s also anonymous, so you don’t know who the jurors are.

Now there’s a developing argument in the literature that having an unreasoned jury decision—so the lack of a reasoned verdict—is actually becoming more and more contrary to the way other areas of the law are developing. Any decision that affects rights in a ministry of law decision, you’re entitled to reasons. It’s becoming a view that it is anomalous to have a jury that doesn’t give you reasons when it’s the most…people say it’s the most fundamental impact on your rights. If your liberty’s at stake, it’s a fundamental impact on your rights, but you may be convicted and not know, not have any reasons.

Damien Carrick: That’s paradoxical isn’t it? Because on the flip side it’s considered a fundamental right to be…

Fiona Hanlon: That’s exactly…exactly…

Damien Carrick: …to have trial by 12 of your peers…

Fiona Hanlon: …that’s right, yes…

Damien Carrick: …as opposed to a lofty judge.

Fiona Hanlon: So again, if we go back to what we were saying earlier, that’s why I would say, leave the call to the accused and leave jury there as a right that the accused can waive. Because otherwise there will be cases where an accused may very well want to have reasons for the decision and then can make the choice…well saying, if I go for a judge-alone trial I will get detailed reasons. If it is something like Rayney where there is detailed forensic evidence of circumstantial case—it’s not just a clear call about credibility or is something against community values in terms of the offending; it’s a very detailed matrix of evidence—and Rayney got the benefit of a detailed statement of reasons. Where if he’d…go to a jury trial he would have got a yes or no conviction or acquit. And we would never have known what the jury actually did with all that detailed evidence.

Damien Carrick: Legal researcher, Dr Fiona Hanlon.

That’s all we have time for on the Law Report this Melbourne Cup Day. Thanks to producer James Pattison and also to audio engineer Miyuki Jokiranta.